os x

If you’re a recent convert to Mac OS X (Tiger / Leopard / Snow Leopard / etc) or someone who uses multiple operating systems at the same time, the differences in mouse and keyword shortcuts get confusing, even irritating sometimes. One of the most irritating ones for me is the difference in what happens when you middle-click on the mouse.

In Windows / Linux, middle clicking in browsers is used to open and close tabs. In OS X, this doesn’t work because middle click is used to trigger the Dashboard. Every time I would want to open or close a tab, the dashboard would show up! To disable this, all you have to do is go to System Preferences > Exposé & Spaces and set the mouse shortcut to “-”.

For the newbies, here’s a screenshot guide. First select “System Preferences”:

Then click on the “Exposé & Spaces” button:

Set the “Dashboard” mouse shortcut to “—” :

So that it looks like this:

And that’s it! You will now be able to middle click to open and close tabs in Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. For Safari, you can open tabs, but closing tabs don’t work.